The Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo

CHAPTER VIII

THE EGO—THE DESIRE-SOUL

PART I

WE have seen that the integral surrender of the human being is an essential pre-requisite of his complete union with the Divine and the total transformation of his nature. We have also seen that, paradoxical as it may appear, it is the ego that at once initiates and impedes this surrender. In order that our surrender may be sincere and integral, we must now try to understand what this ego is,—its origin, purpose, characteristic function, growth and end—and how we can proceed to deal with it in the light of a true knowledge, instead of rushing to grapple with it in the dimness of our half- baked ethical or religious mind, eager to achieve spiritual release by the sheer violence of drastic repressions and renunciations. Nothing is more helpful to a spiritual seeker than a clear and steady light in the consciousness, revealing the goal to be attained and the tangled working of his complex nature with and through which he has to advance. Lack of knowledge is lack of power, and most of the difficulties and failures in the spiritual life can be safely attributed to a lack of knowledge, and to the perfervid precipitancy and summary methods of our

Page 124

aspiring ignorance. Human nature is bafflingly intricate, and it is only by a patient and perspicacious dealing with, it under the direct guidance of the divine Light that we can hope to purify it in all its parts and workings, and help its transformation into its divine counterpart, the Super-nature or Para Prakriti. An impatient and panicky violence can only maim or cripple it.

There are two philosophical theories in regard to the ego. One postulates the ego as the creator of the universe, and credits it with the power of fashioning all phenomenal forms, and weaving the network of unsubstantial relativities. The individual egos are, according to this view, microcosmic centres of the one universal ego. There being no eternal existence or substance sustaining and supporting the ego, when the individual consciousness attains to spiritual emancipation (Mukti), the ego- creation ceases to exist for it, or exists only as a fleeting panorama of phantom forms. The liberated individual loses the very principle of individuation and retains no centre of his cosmic self-expression in the world,—he dissolves in the Eternal by the disappearance of the individualising ego or Avidyâ. The other theory considers the ego as a temporary, teleological construction of the evolutionary ignorance. According to it, the ego reflects —and invariably deflects and distorts while reflecting the real spiritual individual behind, and when it is dissolved, there is no dissolution of all individuality and individual existence, but only of the artificial, separative ego-formation on the surface. The ego is a transitional

Page 125

construction of Nature in her evolutionary self-unfolding, and represents, as best it can in the conditions of the Ignorance, the immortal soul of love and delight which is, in man, the spiritual centre and channel of God's manifestation in the world.

THE GENESIS AND GROWTH OF THE EGO

For tracing the birth of the ego we have to go back to the beginning of creation itself. It is said in the Upanishads that the Absolute, the One, willed to become many for the sheer delight of a multiple self-expression. This primal Will of the Divine is the starting-point of His self-multiplication. But it has a double working,— one from above downwards, from the creative Vijnana¹ towards a complete involution in the Inconscience below; and another from below upwards, from the emergence of Matter, Life and Mind, by an ascensive process of evolution, towards the supernal glory of the Vijnâna or the Supermind above. In the present essay we are concerned with the realisation of the divine Will, in the evolution, which is posterior to the involution of the Superconscient, in a complete negation of Himself, in the Inconscience; and it must be borne in mind that this Will is a Will to the progressive formation of multiple divine individualities, temporal self-figurings of the eternal One.

¹The Supermind

Page 126

when Matter is created, its first movement is a self- splitting into infinitesimal atoms, which can be called the first insentient images or symbols of the forthcoming individualities. The One becomes many in these minute particles of Matter, and the work of self-multiplication progresses by the creation of the material world and the peopling of it with suns and moons and stars and planets. The dual principle of automatic attraction and repulsion, making for aggregation and disaggregation among the atoms, weaves the many-coloured marvel of the material creation. But these "many" are apparently inanimate, dumb, mechanically driven. They are only the first inchoate configuration, the initial, draft of the ultimate object of evolution.

Next evolves life, pulsing with an awaking animation, and betraying a very elementary emergence of consciousness in the form of faint sensation. It garments the earth in the splendour of green. Numberless varieties of plant-life register the formation of organic, biological individualities. What was before mere masses or whirls or more or less stable or fugitive structures of atoms, almost indistinguishable from each other, and characterised by little perceptible individuality, has now been supplemented by living organisms with pronounced individual features and functions. There has evidently been formed in the heart of trees and plants a centralising and co-ordinating agency, something that disengages itself from the mass of inconscient Matter, and grows and develops by mutation and self-adaptation. But it is

Page 127

sub-conscious, dimly awake only to a very limited gamut of sense-tremors. It has not yet evolved the ego, the conscious, centralising "I"; its germinating individuality is generic rather than specific. But that it is proceeding towards a greater, a more trenchant principle of individuation is evidenced by the growing complexity of its organism, on the one hand, and the more efficient co- ordination of its biological functionings on the other, The plants sleep and awake, feel pleasure and pain, and react to all external stimuli, as has been demonstrated by Sir Jagadish chandra Bose, and display a certain sense of self-preservation and self-defence. No doubt, the central being is shaking off its drowse, and coming forward to assert itself and possess its nature.

Then evolves mind, at first in its most elementary form of instinct in the animalcules and the lower animals, and next as a life-mind of hungers, and even a rudimentary, incipient reason. It shows a greater emergence of consciousness, a replacement of blind impulsions by more or less defined appetites, and a much more pronounced and expressive individuality. The animals possess developed instincts, operating in wider areas of experience; their sensations are more alert and definite than in the plants; they have emotions and feelings —love, affection, hatred, anger, jealousy, etc.—and, in some advanced types, even a flicker of the reasoning mind. Here, for the first time, we get a distinct centralising agency, a primary crystallisation of the individuality, a subconscious ego. This ego takes its stand upon the

Page 128

separativeness of its existence, and, though the generic and gregarious habits and tendencies predominate in it, displays enough specific traits and characteristics and variable psychological contours to justify the hypothesis of a clear-cut ego with sharp edges and outlines, physical and psychological, as the eventual fulfilment of the principle of individualisation in the Ignorance. The animal foreshadows the full-fledged human ego.

When man appears on the scene of terrestrial evolution with his developing mind of reason and imagination, the ego-building tends to become coherent and complete. In him the sense of separativeness reaches its most rigid fixity, and an egoistic self-affirmation of the individuality becomes a dominant and governing factor. The human ego is not a subconscious but a conscious ego, asserting itself at every step of its life, imposing itself and encroaching upon others and demanding the subservience of everything to its personal ends. But its consciousness is a mental consciousness, floating like an isolated iceberg among other icebergs upon the waters of the encompassing Subconscient, and, more often than not, moved and tossed by them, though it has always the delusive sense of its free will and independent initiative. It is in man that the work of individualisation seems to reach a climax, and that there is even a semblance of the fulfilment of the primordial Will of the Divine to conscious, multiple self-reproduction; but it is only a deceptive semblance, and not a fact. The normal human consciousness is an ignorant consciousness, seeking but not possessing know-

Page 129

ledge,—it is not a representative of the divine Consciousness. The human being, therefore, though a developed individual, is not the perfect, divine individual, which it is his destiny to become. His is a cramped and clouded, a seeking and struggling and suffering individuality, dragging on a labouring and precarious existence in the rushlight of its mental reason. The Divine cannot yet announce in him, "Here am I, become many, and yet remaining myself, the eternal and indivisible One." The separative ego in man has no experience of the unity of the universal, nor of the absoluteness of the transcendent Existence,—it lives imprisoned in the dim shell of its limited personality.

It will have been clear from the above description that the ego-principle has created distinct individualities in human beings, multiple centres of mentally conscious existence, but not divine centres of luminous self- awareness and self-expression. Even having become many, the Divine has not yet become divinely many, which was His primal Will. For that supreme consummation and the ultimate goal of terrestrial evolution, man has to get beyond the ego and widen into infinity. The ego's work of separative individualisation done, it has to fade away, giving place to the true individual, the soul of man, which lives in the indivisible unity of existence and yet reveals a particular facet and aspect of the infinite Person.

Page 130

THE PURPOSE AND UTILITY OF THE EGO

Our survey of the birth and growth of the ego has shown us that it is a temporary device, a phenomenal construction, of Nature for constituting mentally conscious and separate individualities in the Ignorance. In the midst of the amorphous flux of universal elements, the shifting intermixture of forces and energies, something was needed to serve as a centralising and co-ordinating agency, otherwise no individualities could have been formed. The soul, the true individual, could not certainly come forward at the very beginning and be the overt pilot of its evolution in Nature, the start from the Inconscience precluded such an abrupt intervention. Evolution, commencing from the Inconscient, has perforce to pass through the transitional stage of Ignorance, in which ego-centric division and discord inevitably predominate, before it culminates in the Knowledge and the unity of the Superconscient. It is true that the soul directs its evolution even from the start, but from behind a thick veil of ignorance;—it has to purify and prepare its nature, its instrument of divine self-expression, through long and chequered stages of slow and gradual progress. In the stone and the mineral, it is hidden in distant depths, and throws out no hints of its occult presence, save in certain automatic reactions to external stimuli. In the plant, it has been able to release just enough of its consciousness to react by sensation to the impacts of the outside world, and register some of its subjective affections in its objective

Page 131

form and organic functioning. In the animal has liberated a little more of its consciousness, always in the teeth of an unceasing gravitational pull toward the inert inconscience of its terrestrial origin, changed the blind urge of Nature into subconscious desire, accentuated and enlarged the action of the instinct, and initiated the play of emotions. Sentience, mobility, subconscious volition and emotions are the outstanding innovation effected by the indirect influence of the slowly emergent soul. Another innovation, the greatest from the stand- point of the aim of evolution, is the incipient formation of the ego in the animal, particularly in the higher types of it. The ego stands as a nucleus, a point of concentration and cohesion, tending to clinch the reflected individuality of the soul and impart to it a provisional definiteness and permanence against the shapeless drift and diffusion of the universal elements. In man, the soul has succeeded in making the ego his conscious representative, endowing it with reason, imagination, conscious volition, developed and articulate emotions, even tentative flashes of intuition, and—this is its signal achievement—an increasing urge towards self-transcendence. This urge is the harbinger of the soul's perfect emergence in Nature, and spells an eventual extinction of the ego. But the human ego is a chained and convulsed representative of the soul,— chained to the dualities and convulsed by desires and passions—and has no perception of the Will of God, which the soul is commissioned here to fulfil. Besides, it lives in limitations, and reasons and reflects and acts in the semi-

Page 132

darkness of a mental consciousness. It proceeds on the basis of division and can only imperfectly imagine and conceive, but never realise and live, the unity and harmony of existence. But whatever its defects and drawbacks, it justifiably claim to be the immediate architect of individualities in the domains of evolving ignorance, and even a puny and clouded precursor of the veiled, if self-revealing Person. In spite of its inveterate insistence on division and difference, it hews the road to the coming unity, in spite of its attachments to its own desires and interests, it orientates towards a state of desirelessness and disinterestedness; and in spite of its smug complacency in its habitual avenues, its fenced, familiar pastures and bounded horizons, it strains after the Unknown and thirsts for the Infinite. It is a bridge between the blind mechanism of the material life and the luminous dynamism of the superconscient Spirit. Even if it be a fiction, as some hold, it is, according to Sri Aurobindo, "a practical and effective fiction." If it is a shadow cast by the soul upon the canvas of evolving ignorance, it is progressively penetrated and suffused with the soul-substance, in the concentrated light of which it finally vanishes for ever.

THE TRIPLE STRAND OF THE EGO

The three qualitative modes of the lower nature, Sattwa, Rajjas and Tamas, interfuse in the ego in varying combinations, and give it its distinctive stamp. The ego can be predominantly tamasic, rajasic or sattwic. The tamasic

Page 133

ego is burdened with the inertia and incapacity of the physical nature. It is obsessed with its weakness and insignificance, and is averse to any sustained effort and high ambition. The rajasic ego is drunk with its own. importance, and proud of its power and possessions. It exults in violent self-assertion and the strenuous pursuit of its multiplying desires. It counts no costs to achieve its ends, and is daunted by no difficulties. If it is crude and gross in its self-expression, it is never-the-less more evolved than the tamasic ego, which is dull and heavy and supine. The sattwic ego achieves a poise and purity, so far as they are possible in the comparative calm and clarity of the mind, but is attached to and secretly proud of them. It is obsessed with its virtues as the rajasic ego is obsessed with its desires and passions, and the tamasic ego with its incapacity. The ego of the altruist or the humanitarian, of the callow religionist or the shallow puritan is a subtly magnified ego, all the more difficult to detect and renounce, because it is masked in apparent selflessness and buttressed with its ethical or religious principles. When the humanitarian says that he is ready to lay down even his life for the welfare of mankind or the vindication of his lofty principles, or, when the spiritual seeker seeks God not for God's own sake, but for the achievement of some spiritual end, unless it is their own soul speaking or seeking in them, it is unmistakably their glorified ego. In many self-justifying religious or spiritual lives one can often trace the subtle working of the sattwic ego. But sattwic or rajasic, the ego is the ego, as a chain is a chain,

Page 134

whether it is of iron or gold; and so long as the ego persists, spiritual liberation is a far cry, let alone the Divine Life, which is the aim of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga.

THE TENTACLES OF THE EGO

The tentacles of the ego are spread out in every part of human nature. They pervade our body, our life parts, our sensations, our heart of emotions, our understanding and intellect, and determine and direct every action and reaction of our complex organism. It is not an easy thing to sweep them away at a stroke, or even at many strokes, from the entire nature. And unless the ego is completely blotted out, there is no possibility of the dynamic divine Presence being installed in our being for manifesting its glory upon earth. There is no greater enemy of spiritual liberation and perfection than the ego, "the lynch-pin of the wheel of ignorance," as Sri Aurobindo calls it. It has to be expunged from the whole being—from each of its fibres and each of its energies with which it is securely entwined. The immaculate soul of love and delight cannot live with the. insatiable desire-soul in the same temple built for the service of the self-manifesting Divine. The shadow must depart, so that the substance, the psychic entity, may reign in its place. The end of the ego is the beginning of the manifest Divine in man.

Page 135

THE EGO—THE DESIRE-SOUL

PART II

THE destiny of the individual, according to Sri Aurobindo, is to unite with God, who is his own supreme eternal Self, by the recovery of his universal and transcendent existence, and make his whole being and nature—his entire individuality—a manifesting centre and medium of the divine Existence—Consciousness—Bliss. His essential individuality has not to abolish itself, but continue to reveal the glory of the Universal and Transcendent, of which it is a delegate and representative in the material world. But this he cannot do so long as he is an ego, a limited separate being, wrapped up in his personal aims and interests, and the superficial relations with others, which he establishes through his egoistic personality. Whatever the greatness of his personality in intelligence, power or position, whatever its eminence in humanitarian and altruistic pursuits, he lives in the Ignorance, if he feels himself separate from others. The ego, in its self- enlargement, may come to perceive its unity with others, but, even at its best, this perception can be either a mental idea or a sentiment, not a fact of inner experience, not a dynamic stuff of consciousness. Even if it lives and acts only for others, it so lives and acts according to its own ideas, its personal principles and ethical rules, which are in- variably based on more or less subtle preferences and pre- judgements of its ignorant or half-enlightened nature. It

Page 136

lives in a vicious circle and can never get out of it except by self-extinction, which, naturally enough, it dreads. Man's will to self-transcendence would be quenched for ever if he failed to break beyond the ego, and his imprisoned individuality would never breathe in the Infinite and soar in the Eternal. The limitless ranges of his own consciousness, the countless worlds of his own being, his own universal and transcendent existence with its unbarred knowledge and inconceivable power and bliss would all remain sealed to him. If he ventured into spirituality, his ego would seek to vitiate the integrity of. the start by erecting an artificial opposition between being .and becoming,—to divide is its inveterate habit—and enforce an exclusive orientation. In all its efforts at self- exceeding, the human soul has always to dash against the barrage of the ego, which refuses to give way. Therefore, it is essential for a spiritual seeker to avail himself of the most effective means possible for his liberation from the ego. His most vigilant care must be directed to the replacement of the ego by "the true being which feels itself, even though individual, yet one with all and one with the Divine."¹

I shall now proceed to dwell upon the means Sri Aurobindo teaches for a complete expulsion of the ego from our entire being. I had better repeat here what I said in the beginning of this book that, unlike most spiritual teachers, Sri Aurobindo affirms the possibility

¹On Yoga II by Sri Aurobindo.

Page 137

of a complete elimination of the ego from our whole being, including even its active parts and its subterranean bases. It is absolutely incompatible with the aim and principle of his Yoga that the inner being of man should be free from the ego and able to unite with the Divine, and the outer and lower remain irretrievably in the grip of the ego. Liberation, according to him, has a double aspect: liberation of the soul and liberation of nature; and so long as there is the slightest lingering trace of the ego in any part of the nature, liberation is not integral, and no supramental perfection can be built upon it.

OPENING AND SURRENDER TO THE MOTHER'S FORCE

The first and greatest means of release from the ego, as of achieving anything substantial in the Integral Yoga, is a constant and exclusive opening to the Mother's Force. This cannot be too much insisted upon. The very basic principle of this Yoga is an entire reliance upon the Mother's Force, and an ungrudging surrender to her guidance. Only those who know how to open to her and make her do the sadhana in them, know the secret of progress in .this Yoga; for the tremendous difficulty, of not only purifying and liberating, but of converting and transforming the entire being by a descent of the supramental force, cannot be overcome by the unaided strength of any human being. To open to the Mother is to let her infinite Force enter into us and work in the light of its infallible, if to us inscrutable, knowledge. But what is opening? How

Page 138

should one open? These are questions that are usually asked. The analogy of a closed room will best clarify the point. Each one of us is like a closed room, something like Leibniz's "windowless" monad, into which the light of the Divine or His power can hardly enter. To open to the Mother is to turn our consciousness to her, to open windows, so to say, on the infinite, and let her Force stream in. Describing the opening, Sri Aurobindo says, "To be open is simply to be so turned to the Mother that her Force can work in you without anything refusing or obstructing her action. If the mind is shut up in its own ideas and refuses to allow her to bring in the Light and the Truth, if the viral clings to its desires and does not admit the true initiative and impulsions that the Mother's. power brings, if the physical is shut up in its desire, habits and inertia and does not allow the Light and Force to enter in it and work, then one is not open."¹ Opening can be most easily done by a constant, loving remembrance of" the Mother. Her Presence is always there with its infinite Power within us, around us and above us, waiting to be called for help and protection. It is only our faith and confident call that are needed to make that Presence dynamically felt and effective.

But mere opening without surrender cannot avail much.- The Mother's Force may come, but, finding our nature too rigid or recalcitrant, and reluctant to accept its influence and impulsion, can only withdraw, leaving us to stumble

¹ Letters of Sri Aurobindo on the Mother

Page 139

and suffer in our cherished ignorance. A glad and un- reserved surrender is demanded, not only in the inner and the more developed parts of our being, but in the whole being and nature, so that the Force in its action may meet with no obstruction anywhere. Most often we surrender own body and life and the emotions of the heart as far as it is possible for our personal effort to do it, but reserve to ourselves the ideas and principles of our mind. This reservation stands in the way of the Mother's working in us. It is preposterous to expect the divine Force to act .according to our ignorant mental notions and conceptions; if it did, it would lead us no better than our mental reason. I have already elaborated the process of surrender in the chapters on "The Integral Surrender" and "The Three Stages of Surrender". Here we are concerned only with the surrender of the ego. A most helpful movement .in this direction, and one that comes naturally by the opening of the heart to the Mother, is to replace "I" and "Mine" by "Thou" and "Thine". "Not I, but Thou, O Mother; not my pleasure and convenience, but Thy glory and greatness," should be the constant thought in the mind, and the constant, consecrated feeling in the heart. Our being should be pre-occupied with the Divine as it is pre-occupied today with itself, with its petty egoistic self. "Let my thoughts be concentrated on Thee, my love flow uninterruptedly towards Thee, my body unweariedly and faithfully serve Thee", should be the silent, unceasing prayer of the whole being. Nothing can be more effective -than this constant seeking for the Divine everywhere and

Page 140

in all things and all happenings. One should watch the movements of one's nature and see whether this seeking has awakened there or not, and open and pray to the Mother for a constancy and intensity in it. If the thought wanders, or the emotions twine round something else or somebody else, they have to be quietly but tenaciously called back and turned towards the Divine. And along with surrender must go an uncompromising movement of rejection of all egoistic habits, tendencies and insistences. As an opening without surrender is almost ineffectual, so a surrender without rejection is a fruitless process, a self- deception. But in order that the rejection may be thorough, it is essential that surrender should be detailed and exhaustive. As I have said before, the tentacles of the ego are spread everywhere in our nature, and unless each element of our complex nature, each movement, each vibration of its energy is carefully scrutinised and cured of its egoistic turn, a complete freedom from the ego is impossible. A detailed, dynamic surrender of the whole being is the best means of eliminating the ego; for it is only in action that the faculties and energies of our being come into full play, and all the habits and tendencies, even those which are hidden or suppressed in the subconscient, emerge into view, and can be exposed to the Mother's transforming light. A passive life of ascetic- spirituality, withdrawn from the world and its pouring impacts, considers discretion the better part of valour, and lets the sleeping dogs lie. But victory does not lie that way; the ego persists in the nature-parts even while the

Page 141

soul thrills in the arms of the Infinite. Sri Aurobindo is categoric in his insistence on the divine fulfilment of man in life, and not in the heavens beyond or in the supracosmic Silence; and for that dynamic fulfilment what is of primary importance is an extirpation of the ego from every part of human nature. A quiet, unfailing opening to the Mother's Force supplemented by a surrender of the whole being and a ruthless detection and rejection of the ego will go a long way towards the realisation of that fulfilment. But more is needed.

PSYCHIC PRESSURE AND CONTROL

The second means of release from the ego is the pressure and control of the psychic being or the soul. It is needless to say that the very push towards this release comes from the psychic. From the hidden centre of our being it rays out its light, so that the obscurity of our nature may be dissipated. All urge towards unity and harmony, light and love, beauty and bliss comes from the psychic, and expresses itself, first, in the most developed part of our being, whether it is the mind or the heart or life, and then spreads out to the other parts. The aspiration for the infinite and Eternal and the will to dedicate the, whole being to His service rise like a flame from the psychic and infuse themselves into the nature-parts. But all this is a veiled action and influence from behind, and is not effective enough for the liberation and perfection we .seek in the Integral Yoga. The psychic has to come

Page 142

forward and overtly control the nature till it is totally offered to the Mother, it must exert its influence directly upon the languid and rebellious parts and compel them to surrender. Especially, without its powerful pressure, the ego will never think of renouncing its gratification in the finite and the fleering—the cherished formations of its mind and the desires and interests of its life. If an indirect pressure of the psychic can induce the ego to give itself to others, to accommodate the interests of others to its own, even to sacrifice its own interests for the good of others,—this sacrifice too gives a secret saris- faction to the ego—a direct pressure and intervention is sure to shake the ego out of its personal satisfactions and turn it towards the Infinite. Love and devotion for the Divine and the will to offer itself to Him and serve Him will develop as a result of the increasing pressure of the soul. But it must not be supposed that the ego will disappear as soon as the psychic has come forward and put its redeeming pressure upon it. It is so firmly rooted and dominantly active in the nature that many other means than the psychic pressure have to be adopted for its final elimination. But the psychic pressure upon it to burn its boats and turn towards the Divine and the unity of existence is a potent and indispensable means.

But how to bring the psychic forward and put its pressure upon the ego? I shall deal with this question in a subsequent chapter; for the moment it is enough to say that a sincere opening to the Mother and a call upon her Grace to effect the psychic emergence, along

Page 143

with a personal will and aspiration concentrated upon that end, will be found to be of inestimable help.

RENUNCIATION OF DESIRE

The ego lives and thrives on desire, and richly deserves the name of the desire-soul given by Sri Aurobindo. As it can be tâmasic, râjasic or sâttwic, so desire can also be physical, vital or mental, though all desires have their origin in the universal vital, and from there make inroads. into the different parts of our being. It is not difficult to detect the gross forms of desire—the hungers and lusts, the greed and avarice, and the general craving for the objects of sense; but the subtle mental desires that come disguised as charity and benevolence and service, or that are intent on the vindication of a pet principle, or the realisation of an ethical or intellectual ideal even at the cost of a great sacrifice and suffering, have such a delusive air of sanctity about them that they command universal respect and admiration, and one never suspects that what is so palpably humane and self-denying can yet have the canker of the self, the protean ego, hiding in it. It is commonly held that the bad desires which darken or degrade the being or disturb its peace and tranquillity have to be renounced, and replaced by good ones, especially those for the service and well-being of others or for the advancement of social or humanitarian interests. Though it has an undeniable purifying effect, this substitution can only remove the grosser forms of the ego and

Page 144

put the subtler ones in their place. Any desire, good or bad, which rises from a separative consciousness, is at once an offspring and a nourishment of the ego, and a seeker of spiritual freedom and divine union must take every care to cast it out as soon as he finds it stealing into him. The one object before his vision and consciousness must be the Divine, the Eternal and Infinite, and no finite object, however immense and important it may be,—family, society, country, humanity—must be allowed to intervene and obscure it. The sole, unremitting pre-occupation of his whole being, but a dynamic and not a static pre-occupation, must be an integral union with the Divine and an identification of his will with the Divine Will, and this he can never do so long as he cherishes a single desire in himself, for that one desire, ever so laudable or innocent in his eyes or in the eyes of men, is a pebble that can throw down the whole structure of his spiritual life. That one desire, which flatters his ethical or aesthetic personality, clouds his soul and stands in the way of its liberation. That one desire is a new lease given to the ego and a fresh link forged in the chain of his bondage.

The Gitâ is, therefore, perfectly right in insisting upon the slaying of all desires as a pre-condition to the state of Brahmisthiti, a stable abiding in Brahman. Its insistence is categoric and uncompromising, for it knows that the persistence of desire is the persistence of the ego, and that the ego is the greatest hindrance to spiritual freedom. It prescribes self-knowledge as the preliminary

Page 145

step¹and a detailed surrender of all action to the Divine in an increasing love and devotion on the calm and stable basis of that self-knowledge. Sri Aurobindo's teaching on this point coincides with that of the Gitâ, save for the utmost stress he lays on an absolute reliance on the Mother's supramental Force, and the practice of quiet detachment and rejection to which he gives an original turn of considerable value.

"The first condition for getting rid of desire is...to become conscious with the true consciousness; for then it becomes much easier to dismiss it than when one has to struggle with it as if it were a constituent part of oneself to be thrown out from the being. It is easier to cast off an accretion than to excise what is felt as a parcel of our substance.

"When the psychic being is in front, then also to get rid of desire becomes easy; for the psychic being has in itself no desires, it has only aspirations and a seeking and love for the Divine and all things that are or tend towards the Divine. The constant prominence of the psychic being tends of itself to bring out the true consciousness and set right almost automatically the movements of the nature."²

What the Gitâ calls self-knowledge Sri Aurobindo calls consciousness. But what does it really mean? In Sri

¹ Sânkhya Yoga precedes Karma Yoga in the Gita.

² Bases of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo.

Page 146

Aurobindo's Yoga, to be conscious means to be aware of one's essential reality as distinct from one's phenomenal appearance. Our essential reality is a spiritual entity, made of love and bliss, and unidentified with the mutable nature it puts on for its self-expression in the world; and because it is not identified with anything, it has no separative ego in it. When we live in the true consciousness, we live in unity and harmony, and can clearly observe the divisions and discords of our lower nature, the myriad masks and ruses of the ego and its multiplying desires. The ego then appears incredibly ridiculous, and egoistic pride and satisfaction an insult to the infinite glory of our true Self. The eulogy and homage of the world fails to affect even the fringe of that consciousness. Let us take an example to illustrate the point. Take the case of a philosopher who is rising into fame, and feels gratified by the praise and honours he receives from the public. He has an ideal of achievement before him, to which he tries more and more to approximate. In course of time, urged by some inner developments, he takes to Yoga and makes remarkable progress in it. Passing through some decisive experiences, he realises his true being, his infinite and immortal Self. How will he now receive the praise and honour which used to gratify him so much? Has he any ambition for philosophical laurels left in him? What if he became as great as or even greater than Plato or Aristotle? What is the highest glory and achievement of the human life by the side of the luminous infinity and eternity of his

Page 147

spiritual existence? Does he not now contain all, possess all, enjoy all in his illimitable Self,—all that the world can give and more than all that? Is not an Aristotelian or Platonic eminence but a phosphorescent bubble vis-à-vis his infinite self-existence and its unimaginable splendour? It is only when one looks down at ego from one's spiritual consciousness that it appears in its true colours—a petty tool and creation of the ignorant mind, arrogating to itself the powers and qualities it receives from the universal Nature and pluming itself upon its trite, ephemeral triumphs! Can the infinite Self exult over a finite and fugitive success? As well then might the sea plume itself upon the swell and shimmer of a foam-crested wave, or the sky upon the silver twinkle of a star! The true consciousness gives one the right perspective, the right sense of proportion, the right standard of values, and the power of right appraisement. Under its gaze the ego stands unmasked, abashed, shrivelled.

This does not mean that the spiritual man will not cultivate philosophy or poetry or any of the arts, and take a genuine delight in his creations. Rather, his Yoga will enhance his creative talent and deepen his insight into the way it flowers in him. Only, he will know his talent to be not his, but God's, a gift to him for the work of the divine self-expression, and he will not give it more than an instrumental importance. To him his personal great- ness and the greatness of others will be the same, so far as their source is concerned; he will feel as much joy in the

Page 148

achievements of others as in his own, for he will have lost the sense of separateness. All achievements he will acclaim as God's achievements, and feel no attachment to any. To live in this unlimited consciousness is to be conscious, and to be thus conscious is to be able to detect all the wiles and desires and disguises of the ego, and direct the Mother's Force to dissipate them. It is only a secure poise in this consciousness that can give an immunity from the insidious attacks of the subtle desires of the ego.

WIDENING AND ASCENT OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Another effective means of release from the ego is a progressive widening and ascent of consciousness. This can be more easily done if the inner centre has been discovered and realised. With a more or less stable experience of the psychic centre, and a poise in it, one can let one's consciousness sweep beyond the mind and enlarge into the cosmic vastness. If the knots of the ego have been frayed or loosened, and the invasion of the desires quelled, a quiet and intense aspiration will act as a strong lever of ascent. The individual consciousness, breaking out of the ego-bounds, will soar and expand till it realises the Atman, the individual-universal Self, or Vishwâtman, the Cosmic Self. This widening may be felt in the beginning by the ego as a mortal wrench, w a stunning and disintegrating shock. It is this shock, this dazed sense of self-loss that makes the ego associate

Page 149

mystery with all supraphysical experience. It is, as if, something was bursting out of it, submerging and surpassing it at the same time, and expanding on all sides. Gradually, careering past the ego, the individual consciousness learns to breathe freely in that large and limpid air, and looks down upon its phenomenal form as a tiny knot of Matter, Life and Mind, as a minute point in the limitless vastness of his immortal self-existence. In that high ether there is no ego,—there is a clear and constant perception of the unity of existence; but down. below in the nature-parts, the ego may still drag on its precarious life, more by the momentum of the past than by any fresh impetus and initiative. This mechanical action of the ego is replaced by slow or swift stages by the Mother's Force descending from above and taking, possession of the nature. There is the possibility, not infrequent, of the individual consciousness being pulled down from its lofty station and identified again with the active nature of the ego, but such lapses are usually short- lived and cannot be a permanent bar to the final liberation. After some alternations of ascent and fall, and the continuing working of the Mother's Force in the nature, a certain security is gained in the higher poise and a considerable clarity and transparency in the lower nature, which preclude the frequency of the relapse and the fake identification. The individual consciousness rises higher and higher, and each ascent to a new plane of consciousness is followed by a descent of the characteristic power of that plane, which effects, more puissantly than.

Page 150

the previous powers, the purification of the nature and the elimination of the ego. The largeness and light of the upper air penetrate into the lower mechanism, and little by little the knots of the ego loosen or snap. There grows, as a consequence of the action of the higher Force, an incipient sense of liberation in the nature-parts, and a more ready and effective response to the demands of Spirit. A greater and freer play of intuition in the mind, life and the physical being; a sensitive perception of and participation in the working of the universal Nature; an increasing impersonal serenity and flexibility; and a steadier drive of the spiritual force, are some of the developing results of the widening and ascent of consciousness. But the complete elimination of the ego is yet a far cry.

What we have described above is a change brought about in the individual by his self-extension and ascent to the higher planes of the being, and the descent of the characteristic forces of those planes into him. But, though it is a considerable change, it is not a radical conversion; for the ego still persists in the nether regions of the Subconscient, and influences the automatic movements, habits and tendencies of the active nature. Besides, even if one has succeeded in eliminating the ego-sense, which attaches itself to the instruments of the individual nature, one has not yet got rid of the "fundamental ego-sense, supporting itself on the consciousness of the mental Purusha behind the play." Sri Aurobindo calls it the sheer ego", an uncanny, elemental "I"-ness, bare, un-

Page 151

saddled and unpanoplied, but powerful enough to carry on the play of the separative Ignorance; and so long as "this fundamental ego-sense remains, there is no absolute release. It may be wider, purer, more flexible; release may be now much easier to attain and nearer to accomplishment, but still release has not been effected. We have to go farther, get rid of this ego-sense also and back to the Purusha on whom it is supporting itself and of whom it is a shadow...."¹ For a complete elimination of the ego-sense and the sporadic recurrence of its reflex action in the Subconscient, one has then to rise into the Overmind which is beyond the Higher Mind, Illumined Mind and the plane of Intuition, and bring down the Overmind gnosis into the Subconscient and the Inconscient. The Overmental widening of consciousness is a global universalisation, and its perfection marks the snapping of all egoistic bonds, and a considerable clearing of the nature of the separative sense. One begins to live and move and have one's being in a global unity. And yet some dissolving fragments or ghosts of the old egoistic habits and impulsions may be detected sometimes in some obscure nooks or hidden folds of the nature. The characteristic action of the Overmind being selective, though unitarian, it cannot integrate the entire being into a divinely dynamic unity. In order to effect a complete clearance of the vanishing traces of the ego, the individual must rise to the Supermind, and the Mother's supramental

¹The Synthesis of Yoga by Sri Aurobindo.

Page 152

Force descend into the nature and deal directly with them. The absolute release from the ego in the active nature and the Subconscient, and the blotting out of all its vestigial action in the being can only be effected by the Supermind with its supreme transforming Force. No other spiritual power is capable of this consummation.

It is important to note here—it has already been hinted at before—that in the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo the liberation from the ego that is sought to be achieved, is not a liberation in trance or in an absorbed state of consciousness, immersed in the silence or the love and joy of the Divine, but a dynamic liberation, invulnerably immune to the attack of the ego in any part of the being, even the most physical and superficial. It means a complete universalisation of the whole being, and a transformation of the Subconscient and the Inconscient, so that the unitarian consciousness may be established everywhere, and the dynamic personality have an unfettered play upon it as a permanent basis,—an unprecedented triumph of the human soul, inevitable as an evolutionary perfection, but possible only by an ascent of the individual to the Supermind and the answering descent of the supramental Mahashakti into Matter.

What remains when the ego fades out of existence? The infinite and indestructible substance, of which the ego was a convulsed shadow; the liberated being, delivered for ever from the nightmare of the dualities and discords of mortal life and restored to his universality and transcendence and his union with the Divine and

Page 153

with all existence, and fulfilling God's Will on earth through his transfigured individual nature. Realising God in himself and God in all and beyond all, himself in all and all in himself, sarvāni bhūtāni ātmani sarvabhūtesu cātmānam—he lives and acts in the inalienable unity of existence, and expresses that blissful unity in terms of a harmonious God-revealing diversity.

Page 154